I have a secret double life. At least as far as social media is concerned. When I’m not blogging about booze, I am taking photos of things I have baked on Instagram. Today, these two worlds have collided.

Boozy baking.

Oh yes. You read that correctly. Boozy baking.

It’s Lovely Girlfriend’s birthday today. To celebrate this we both have the day off! In a bit we’ll be going out for a fancy-ass Michelin Starred lunch deal (so there may well be a post about matched wine later). However, she is currently at the hairdressers and I am obviously making her a cake. A mojito drizzle cake. It is a bit of a house special. It’s the cake I made as a special request to Lovely Girlfriend (as a loaf cake for our dance class – we met at a dance class, the getting together story is far less romantic, and rather unsurprisingly, involves wine!) and then again as a birthday cake for her 30th. I am making it again today.

It’s a personal me made recipe – although it’s mostly based on a lemon drizzle cake recipe I saw on TV ages ago. It’s a simple eggs, sugar, butter, flour based recipe.

• Weigh four large eggs
• The same weight of caster sugar
• The same weight of butter
• The same weight of flour
• a couple of glugs of good rum (about a double measure – 50ml/2oz)
• The zest of two limes

Extra special cake that this is, I used not one, not two, but THREE rums. There is some Gerry’s of Old Compton Street plantation rum (which is pretty special – this was one of theirs from a few years ago. It’s a Guatemalan aged in pineau casks – it’s nom!), some Cornish spiced rum called Dead Man’s Fingers and a rum I brought back from Hawaii with me while I was there doing SCIENCE as part of my PhD.

Anyway – you can do all the fancy creaming the butter and sugar together and sifting the flour. I just stick everything in a bowl together and beat with an electric whisk for a few minutes and then bake for 30-40 minutes at 180 degrees C (until golden brown).

Then comes the mojito drizzle.

• Rum
• Mint
• Granulated sugar
• limes

I use about 150g of sugar and then add rum and lime in equal measure until it’s a loose paste, ad a pile of mint leaves and the juiced limes and just leave it to sit for an hour or so. Not a great mojito base, but makes a great syrup for the cake! While the cake is still warm prick it with a fork to break the surface and then carefully (for a given value of careful) pour the drizzle over the cake.

Today I made two of them but with three eggs. I then put the left over drizzle in with some butter and icing sugar to make a butter cream (google it – I did) for the middle.

It’s a useful base cake too – I’ve used it for Gin and Tonic, Rum and Coke (use a teaspoon of allspice in the cake bit) and a Prosecco and Peach version. The opportunities are endless!

[EDIT: Be careful not to over rum the drizzle! I did this time and while not revolting, it was a lot less good than it should have been!]